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Building Local Capacity – Amplifying Afghan Voices
These films were made by Afghans during an intensive 5-week training in documentary production provided by Community Supported Film. After three weeks of rigorous exercises, each student developed and produced a character driven short documentary. For many of the trainees, this is their directorial debut as a documentary filmmaker.
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The Fruit of Our Labor: Afghan Perspectives in Film
- Story 1: L is for Light, D is for Darkness, Hasibullah Asmati
- Story 2: Searching for a Path, Reza Sahel
- Story 3: Hands of Health, Zarah Sadat
- Story 4: The Road Above, Aqeela Rezai
- Story 5: Knocking on Time’s Door, Ahmad Wahid Zaman
- Story 6: Bearing the Weight, Mona Haidari
- Story 7: Water Ways, Majeed Zarand
- Story 8: Beyond Fatigue, Baqir Tawakoli
- Story 9: Treasure Trove, Fakhria Ibrahimi
- Story 10: Death to the Camera, Sayed Qasem Hossaini
Screen&Discuss Themes for Consideration:
Here are some suggestions for ways to use the films in relation to specific issues:
- Man-made disasters, impact of war: ‘L’ is for Light, ‘D’ is for Darkness; Knocking on Times Door; Bearing the Weight; Death to the Camera
- Local ownership of the development process: ‘L’ is for Light, ‘D’ is for Darkness, Hands of Health, Knocking on Times Door, Water Ways;
- Lack of local ownership: Death to the Camera
- Disability rights: Bearing the Weight
- Gender equality and women’s empowerment: ‘L’ is for Light, ‘D’ is for Darkness, Hands of Health, The Road Above, Bearing the Weight, Beyond Fatigue, Treasure Trove, Death to the Camera
- Unemployment and Job development: Searching for a Path, The Road Above, Bearing the Weight, Treasure Trove, Death to the Camera
- Cooperative farming and business development, community development: Water Ways
- Banking system and financial exploitation: Searching for a Path
- Education: ‘L’ is for Light, ‘D’ is for Darkness, Knocking on Times Door, Beyond Fatigue
- Health care: Hands of Health
- Drug addiction: The Road Above
- Water rights and drought: Water Ways
- The Aid Industry: Death to the Camera
‘L’ is for Light, ‘D’ is for Darkness
Original: 12:20 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 3:55 min.)
Direction and Camera by Hasibullah Asmati
Editing by Hamed Alizada
Sound and Additional Camera by Zarah Sadat
Click Here for Excerpt
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After the refugees returned, post-Taliban, there was no girl’s school in the village. Waseema took things into her own hands, organizing the women, pressuring the resistant men, and setting up ‘classrooms’ in an abandoned, roofless, building on the outskirts of the village. The sounds of the girls calling out their lessons doesn’t disturb anyone – except for those who won’t follow their Mullah’s advice and allow their daughters and sisters to attend.
Hasibullah Asmati’s family is from Takhar and he lives in Kabul. He worked as a production assistant on the documentary Addicted in Afghanistan, and as a freelance production assistant with the Takhar province TV channel. Hasib is currently working as a freelance videographer.
Searching for a Path
Original: 13 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 2:53 min.)
Direction, Camera and Sound by Reza Sahel
Editing by Rahmatulah Jafari
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The streets of Kabul are clogged with pushcart vendors of every sort. After the fall of the Taliban, the vendors were left in peace, as there were few cars on the streets. Now they are beaten by the police and chased from corner to corner – unless they pay a bribe. Fruit selling is the product of choice in the fall season. In the summer they rot too quickly in the 105˚ heat. It’s not a profitable living, but in a country with 40% unemployment, the choices are slim.Will these vendors’ children still be facing the same limited opportunities when they seek employment? 13 min.
Reza Sahel is from Ghazni province and lives in Kabul. He works as a freelance photo-journalist with BBC online and also works as a cameraman for Nagar TV on spot and feature news. Reza is a multimedia trainer for NAI in cooperation with Internews, and is a founding member of Third Eye Photography.
Hands of Health
Original: 12 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 2:54 min.)
Direction, Camera and Sound by Zahra Sadat
Editing by Jawed Taiman
Additional Sound by Hasibullah Asmaty
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The maternity clinic has been built but there are no doctors and no medical equipment. Who’s to blame, the Ministry of Health or the Men’s Development Council? The Women’s Council handed over their National Solidarity Program funds to the men when they agreed to build a maternity clinic. But with it still not open pregnant woman like Farida continue to make the long trip to Kabul to get medicine and medical advice, 
including birth control. After ten kids, the father thinks it might be time to stop having children – but says it’s in the hands of God. 14 min.
Zahra Sadat is from Bamyan province and lives in Kabul. Zahra works as a freelance journalist for Jadid Media online and in multi-media production. She founded and directs the Open Society Organization and volunteers with Afghan Youth for Peace.
The Road Above
Original: 6 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 2:28 min.)
Direction and Camera by Aqeela Rezai
Additional Camera by Reza Sahel and Baqir Tawakoli
Editing by Jawed Taiman
Sound by Reza Sahel
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It is estimated that out of 28 million Afghans, 1 million are addicted to heroin. Mona tried once to get her husband into treatment, but he escaped and she hasn’t seen him since. Now she works street construction, but does the manual labor wearing a burqa to protect the honor of her family. 6 min.
Aqeela Rezai stars in Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf’s film Five in the Afternoon and appears in many other TV dramas. Since 2009 she has worked part time for the Independent Election Commission. She previously produced and appeared in a documentary on the challenges faced by actresses in Afghanistan.
Knocking on Time’s Door
Original: 5 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 1:23 min.)
Direction, Camera and Sound by Ahmad Wahid Zaman
Editing by Hamed Alizada
Additional Sound by Majid Zarand
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A former Mujahedeen fighter returns to teach at the village school where his father taught. He lives what he teaches: that each of us is responsible to use the time we are given wisely. He’s leading the village development council and trying to build a new school. For many fighters, giving up their gun meant giving up an income and a position of power and respect. Can 
Afghan government initiatives, like the National Solidarity Program, provide employment and leadership opportunities for men that instill similar pride in the rebuilding of their communities? 6 min.
Ahmad Wahid Zaman, from Panjshir province and living in Kabul, trained as an agriculturalist. He works as a journalist, producer, and director of long-form news reports, previously at Ariana TV and now at Bakhtar TV.
Bearing the Weight
Original: 13 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 3:32 min.)
Direction and Camera by Mona Haidari
Editing by Hamid Arshia
Sound by Sayed Qasem Hossaini
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Not long after marrying at twenty-one, Shafiqa lost her husband, her newly born daughter, and her leg in a rocket attack. The war in Afghanistan has left some 700,000 disabled. Many – especially disabled women and children – are hidden from view, trapped by their culture. Shafiqa overcame the “paralysis of her soul” and found a way to take care of herself, her two 
sons, and her community. 13 min.
Mona Haidari, is from Wardack and lives in Kabul. The focus of her works has shifted from painting, to photography, to documentary filmmaking. She is the assistant producer of Focus Reports, a program on social issues, for Negah TV. Mona also participated in cinéma vérité training with Atelier Varan.
Water Ways
Original: 9 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 2:08 min.)
Direction and Camera by Majeed Zarand
Additional Camera and Editing by Jawed Taiman
Sound by Majeed Zarand and Ahmad Wahid Zaman
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Neighboring villages – one with access to water and one without – offer very different prospects to their residents. The farmers without water are stuck; unable to feed their families, they turn to work as day laborers. However, working a day job keeps them from solving their water problems. Down the road, villagers have easier access to water and have used assistance from the Afghan government’s National Solidarity Program to improve their lives. 
Unfortunately, tensions could arise between these villages over access to water. 11 min.
Abdul Majeed Zarand, lives in Ghazni and works in Wardack province. He is a reporter for the Afghan War Reporters Agency (AWRA) and Afghan Daily Times. A poet and novelist, Abdul has also volunteered as a local school teacher for the last 7 years.
Beyond Fatigue
Original: 9 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 2:35 min.)
Direction, Camera and Sound by Baqir Tawakoli
Editing by Hamid Arshia
Production Assistance and Additional Sound by Reza Sahel
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In most corners of the world, a woman’s work is never done. In Beyond Fatigue an Afghan woman walks miles to help her sick mother-in-law and is responsible for the next generation of young minds as she teaches them the language and lessons of the Quran.
In between she works at the vocational training center where she hopes to get a loan to buy her own sewing machine.
Baqir Tawakoli lives and works in Bamyan province. He is a poet and short story writer, and has previous training in photography. Baqir works and volunteers with economic and social development agencies, and was head of his village’s Community Development Council.
Treasure Trove
Original: 11 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 1:56 min.)
Direction, Camera and Sound by Fakhria Ibrahimi
Editing by Rahmatullah Jafari
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From the inside of a bakery, an unusual view of the daily lives of Afghan women is revealed – unveiled and uninhibited.
Fakhria Ibrahimi lives in Kabul and is from Wardack province. She has worked on community-based documentary photography projects in Sari Pul province. Fakhria is also a Kabul-based representative for the Funder’s Network for Afghan Women.
Death to the Camera
Original: 20 min. (Click here for Excerpt: 1 min.)
Direction and Camera by Sayed Qasem Hossaini
Editing by Hamed Alizada
Sound by Mona Haidari
A camera moves among woman working their last day on a job site. As they joke and fight – accusing each other of being prostitutes, liars, and racists – the mood repeatedly shifts between belly laughs and rage. The women are left waiting for hours for their pay by the charity that administers the cash-for-work program. As they wait, they consider what debts they’ll pay off, what food they’ll buy, and how they’ll stay warm during the approaching winter. There is lively discussion about what happens to all the aid that never reaches them, and whether Karzai is a crook or a servant of the people.
Is the camera revealing anything truthful, or simply inciting these women to present what they think ‘the other’ wants to hear – or what might get them something from the world on the other side of the camera? Who is on the other side of that camera anyway?
Sayed Qasem Hossaini grew up in Sari Pul and Balk provinces and studied film at the Cinema and Fine Arts department at Kabul University. Previously he produced a short video report on carpet making, served as a sports reporter for a community newspaper, and worked as a freelance production assistant.
Presented & produced by Community Supported Film
Co-Producer: The Killid Group
© 2011 Community Supported Film
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I have yet to view an entire film, as I just ordered them today, however I discovered your film festival on a small poster door of a Vermont country store. Imagine how surprised! Since May of 2011 I have helped two young Afghan women with their ed. here in the States. One recently had to return to Mazir because of her fathers ill health. Her English is very good and she has completed one semester at Salem State University. I fear her brothers will not let her return and she is desperate to cont. her education. As a graduate of Ted Achellies, SOLA school in Kabul she could help in many ways with any project in need of an interpreter or assistant. I will send her this site and hope she can get in touch to promote films in her village of Mazir.
This is so important to have a social bridge to communicate the needs of women in this country. Thank you … thank you for this project. The timing is perfect… they need us now more then ever.
Thank you very much for your work and input!
Hi good evening.
Hope you will fine and doing well.
I hope you will remember me as a repoter of Afghan War Rporting agency (AWRA). As maker of Water ways documentry, I have been recieving life threat since then from taliban, at its earlier days I ignored those threats but now its becoming dangerous for me and my family, so I have decided to leave my country with my family…..
….for peacefull place anywhere in the world, I wiill need your help in this matter, i just want your humble guidence.
Abdul Majid Zharand,.
These are all fantastic. Each filmmaker offers a unique perspective and style that transcends through the excellent storytelling and imagery.
Aqeela- the scene of the addicts huddled under the bridge is incredibly powerful, I hope Mona finds her husband and that he receives the help that he needs.
Reza Sahel, your choice of character is great. I really felt a connection with him throughout the short piece. The final shots of his glowing shadow are just beautiful.
All of these are so moving, and I will be passing them on to friends and family. Great job filmmakers!
I think these films are incredible and wish they were more widely available. We have shared them amongst our board (Rubia, Inc.) and the group Sewing Confidence. The visual advocacy aspect of these movies is important although the sheer beauty of the cinematography and the relationships that are hinted at are also profoundly moving.
Thanks,
Hetty Startup
Sewing Confidence Liason to RUBIA, Inc.
Reza Sahel, your film about the banana merchant reminded me of the fruit seller who dared to start the people’s revolution in Tunisia. The footage at night — the way your camera plays with the light — is beautiful. Thanks for bringing the life of this Kabul man to all of us outside of Afghanistan.
Mona Haidiri,
I appreciated very much your film, “Bearing the Weight.”
I shared it with my reading group of mothers and 13-year old girls in Boston, since we just read a book about a teenage girl who lost her leg.
Your film amplifies the voices of these remarkably courageous women who face the triple hardship of war, poverty and disability. The movie was beautifully made: the scenes you filmed from the window sill were stunning. Thank you for the gift of your art.
“We are all bombarded with so many mainstream media images of Afghanistan that are totally lacking an authentic voice. [“The Fruit of Our Labor”] fills that void. Connecting to Afghans trying to live with dignity and compassion under such horrific circumstances shatters so many of the incorrect underlying assumptions that have been a huge part of the problem,
Many thanks to Aqeela Rezai and Mona and the others who worked on The Road Above. I am glad to understand a little more about the lives and situations of women in Afghanistan through this poetic window into a small part of Mona’s life.
Greetings Hasibullah Asmati, many thanks for your film L is for Light, D is for Darkness. I volunteer from the US to help women’s groups in Afghanistan be able to educate more girls and adult women. Your film is such a eloquent portrayal of how women and men seek to create change in a dignified way in their own villages. It will help people understand the real ways this happens and how people’s efforts working together can improve things. If you are able, please send our thanks to Waseema and the others who appear in the film.
Best wishes,
Alicia
Fakhria jan, many thanks for your film treasure trove, and many thanks to the women of the bakery who allowed themselves to be featured in it. It is beautiful and moving and dignified. I hope to show it to young and old people in the U.S. so they can have a better idea of what women’s lives are like and can support women’s efforts for a better life.
Best wishes,
Alicia
Thank you also Baqir Tawakoli and the woman featured in Beyond Fatigue for making this film. I volunteer as a member of the Board of Directors for Rubia, a small organization in the US that works with communities in rural Afghanistan to offer opportunities to women and this is an eloquent portrait of so many women’s lives. I am working to organize several showings so that many people can see and hear your story and your work.
Salaam,
Alicia
These films portray how life is in many developing countries — things often taken for granted in developed countries. The film is not primarily tugging for an emotional response as much as it portrays the challenges faced by these people and how communities are bringing change in a respectful and positive manner. Good job! Thanks.
These films certainly make me feel grateful to be an American. It looks so hard to live in Afghanistan. I feel deeply for these people and thank these filmmakers for sharing their lives with me.
Love, Cordette